Protesters to rally against Apple at Grand Central store tomorrow

Protesters plan to stage a demonstration tomorrow in an effort to take Apple to task for partnering with Eastern manufacturers repeatedly accused of mistreating factory workers. Change.org and SomeOfUs have combined their efforts to raise awareness of poor working conditions in factories operated by Foxconn that manufacture consumer electronics for Apple and other vendors. The two organizations have gathered more than 250,000 electronic signatures on petitions that call for Apple to demand improvements be made to the working conditions in the factories that build iPhones, iPads and other Apple products. Representatives from both groups will join protesters on Thursday at 10:00 a.m. at Apple’s new Grand Central Terminal retail store to deliver the signed petition to Apple. “I have been a lifelong Apple customer and was shocked to learn of the abusive working conditions in many of Apple’s supplier factories,” Change.org’s Mark Shields said in a statement. “At Foxconn, one of Apple’s biggest manufacturers, there is a history of suicides, abusive working conditions, and almost no pay. These working conditions are appalling, especially for Apple.” The groups’ full press release follows below.

Apple users will deliver a quarter million petition signatures to Apple in global headquarters including Washington, DC, NYC, San Francisco, London, Sydney, and Bangalore

Petition campaign demands that Apple make iPhone 5 “ethical”

New York, NY – Concerned Apple customers will deliver more than a quarter million signatures from campaigns on Change.org and SumOfUs.org to Apple’s Grand Central Station, NYC location demanding the company respond to recent criticisms of worker abuse in their supplier factories and commit to creating an ethical iPhone 5.

What: Local consumers will deliver more than 250,000 petition signatures to Apple, asking the company to develop a worker protection strategy in response to reported abuse in Chinese supplier factories.

Visuals: large iPhone posters, large amounts of printed handouts for delivery

Mark Shields, an Apple user from Washington, DC, launched his campaign on Change.org after learning about poor working conditions in the Chinese factories where many popular Apple products are manufactured, including the iPhone. His campaign has been featured in the Boston Globe, CNN International, Guardian, BBC, and other national publications.

“I have been a lifelong Apple customer and was shocked to learn of the abusive working conditions in many of Apple’s supplier factories,” said Mark Shields, who launched the campaign on Change.org. “At Foxconn, one of Apple’s biggest manufacturers, there is a history of suicides, abusive working conditions, and almost no pay. These working conditions are appalling, especially for Apple.”

More than 55,000 SumOfUs members have signed that organization’s petition already, making it the most viral petition since SumOfUs, a new global grassroots community of consumers fighting for corporate accountability, launched just over two months ago. More than 35,000 of the petition signers say they buy Apple products, including over 20,000 iPhone users.

“I use an iPhone myself,” said Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director of SumOfUs. “I love it, but I don’t love having to support sweatshops, and neither do millions of other Apple consumers.The hip, educated market that Apple aspires to corner is largely composed of responsible consumers who don’t want to be complicit in sweatshop labor.”

“Apple’s attention to detail is famous, and the only way they could fail to be aware of dozens of worker deaths, of child labor, of exposure to neurotoxins is through willful ignorance,” she added. “That’s why our members are asking Apple to clean up its supply chains in time to make the iPhone 5 its first ethically produced product.”

The petition delivery is being coordinated globally by concerned consumers. Petition deliveries will take place in Washington, DC, New York, San Fransisco, London, Sydney, and Bangalore, all asking Apple to improve its commitment to worker protection.

Apple doesn’t care, they are making record profits off you people! People say those money #’s and went ape nuts, this is only the beginning of Apple’s problems!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003307727622 Trisjen Harris

Apple doesn’t care, they are making record profits off you people! People say those money #’s and went ape nuts, this is only the beginning of Apple’s problems!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000581856237 Adam McDonald

These kinds of protestors are laughable, at best. To assume that Apple, or any other single American company has the power to change a lifestyle in a foreign country is idiotic. Apple is not Foxconn’s only customer; Acer, Dell, IBM, Motorola, Samsung, and the list goes on. Each and every one of those companies shares just as much bad karma as Apple, yet where are the irrational cries to those companies? Apple is the biggest, so it’s made out to be much worse than it really is.

Foxconn isn’t the only company that allows child labour in China. Child labour is wrong, no doubt, but if that’s the only way a family can survive, then that’s it. Putting them out of work would only make it worse. China is in no position to change their economical and social structure so that this never happens, and a single company is in no position to egg them towards doing so, either.

“But Apple could withdraw their business….” — and go where? The US of A? Where we make ten times more than the average Chinese worker? So we can pay 1,000 dollars for a cellphone instead of 100? Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it. It’s an unfortunate cost of our decadent lifestyle that we, as Americans aren’t willing to give up.

If these protestors were truly against such practices, then they wouldn’t have an iPhone, iPad, Galaxy S II, and the like. They likely wouldn’t have any cell phone. It’s hypocrisy. The only way to change these practices is stop paying for them. Eventually, years from then, maybe it will have enough of a financial impact on the companies involved to change their production model and ethics, but until then, you’d have to do without… technology. Likely, they’re too enveloped in their own “do good” mantra that they can’t even see they’re encouraging what they’re “fighting” against.

This is nothing more than the whiners in the 70’s crying for peace. Ignorance at its finest. This is version 2.0.